THE pressure was on Bond this year. His four-year absence from the screen after the letdown of Quantum of Solace and the hoo-ha surrounding his 50th anniversary celebrations always meant expectations would be high for his 23rd outing.

Add to that a cast and crew that have more Oscar kudos than most Oscar-winning films and some eye-popping trailers and you know that anything short of a Goldfinger or Casino Royale will be viewed as a disappointment.

So does Bond deliver or is Skyfall another Die Another Day-type misfire?

The film was screened to critics in the UK and US on Friday and the praise has been universal, with many believing it to be better than Casino Royale, something on par with The Dark Knight and the Bourne films. In fact, the word that most critics are using is "Nolan-esque"; Daniel Craig and director Sam Mendes have given the series a serious edge and given Bond depth, much like director Christopher Nolan achieved with Batman.

What negative criticism there is centres on the film's running time - it's 143 minutes long - and the third act, which many felt wasn't as thrilling as the film's opening sequence.

Australian reviews of Skyfall won't arrive until next month - and although the film opens in the UK in two weeks it won't hit Australian cinemas until November 22 - so until then here is a taste of the first reviews.

Mendes has dared to raise character and motivation to levels unseen in Bond films, while still keeping the action set-pieces in London, Turkey, Shanghai, and a searing ending in Glen Etive in Scotland. The stunts are as athletic as ever, but the best part comes when Bond makes a death-defying leap on to a moving train and pauses, just for a moment, to adjust his crisp white cuffs. The Bond franchise is 50 years old this year, and the scriptless mess of Quantum of Solace may be considered its mid-life crisis. But Skyfall is a resurrection, and will go down as one of 007’s best.

At the 70-minute mark, Javier Bardem makes his fabulously staged entrance as Silva, who, like many Bond villains of the past, is half persuasive and half-lunatic, has delusions of exceptional grandeur and is partial to explaining many things to his captive before he means to kill him. He also has a theatrically sexual side that brings something new to the gallery of Bond villains. In all events, Bardem makes him a riveting and most entertaining figure.

Sam Mendes has essentially made a Christopher Nolan Bond film before Christopher Nolan got the chance. That's not quite fair to the American Beauty director, who makes his own mark on the series (and possibly his most satisfying film so far). But it's also true that many of the qualities that Nolan brought to the "Batman" series are present and correct in "Skyfall," both in the good and the bad.

Whatever parallels it shares with the Bourne series or Nolan's astonishingly realized Batman saga, Skyfall radically breaks from the Bond formula while still remaining true to its essential beats, presenting a rare case in which audiences can no longer anticipate each twist in advance. Without sacrificing action or overall energy, Mendes puts the actors at the forefront, exploring their marvelously complex emotional states in ways the franchise has never before dared.

Audaciously, Skyfall's most sexually charged moment comes not with the femme fatale at that gaudy casino but during the extended interrogation scene, as Silva runs his fingers across Bond's bare chest, then reaches down to part his legs. "What's your regulation training for this?" Silva teases him. "What makes you think it's my first time?" 007 shoots back - a tacit reminder that he went to Eton after all.

Sam Mendes’s frequently dazzling, utterly audacious entry in the franchise has less in common with its much-loved predecessors than Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. After its release in 2008 (when it left Quantum of Solace, the 22nd Bond film, trailing in its wake), Nolan’s pathbreaking superhero picture almost single-handedly reconfigured the modern blockbuster template. Like a wise old dog, 007 has studied it carefully, and learned some new tricks.

Daniel Craig has long since placed his own stamp on Bond, and he once again brings an engaging, human dimension to this most iconic of spies. This is a Bond who’s variously tense, vulnerable, tipsy, embittered and as promiscuous as we’ve come to expect. It’s also pleasing to see Bond the detective as well as the man of action, as he uses his Sherlockian skills to entertaining effect in one small yet memorable moment.

Also ticked off the Bond checklist is Q, reinvented by Ben Whishaw as a cardigan-wearing computer whizzkid whose gadgets are stripped down to the bare essentials: a Walther PPK with hand-print recognition and a radio signalling device. "This isn't exactly Christmas," Bond quips. "Were you expecting an exploding pen?" Q fires back.

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